Our 10-year-old son’s nightmare at the hands of the Spanish Authorities IASS Zaragoza
For any parent, having your child stolen from you is one of the biggest nightmares you can face. However it’s something you always assume can only happen to other people. We certainly never would have dreamed it would happen to us – a close, loving family, enjoying our adopted home Spain, nor imagined we would have. And yet it did happen.
The Nightmare started
We found ourselves living a nightmare worse than we could have ever imagined. On the morning of June 12, 2022, at 9 o’clock a huge squad of armed police and, social services and some other civilians descended on our house and snatched our 10-year-old son, l.a.w.. It took us 42 days to get him back – 42 days when he lived his own nightmare in a so-called safe house – which turned out to be anything but safe.
In the midst of this nightmare we tried to innerstand exactly what laws we might have broken, what we did wrong and also what laws entitle the authorities to storm into our property on the flimsiest of pretexts and steal our boy. If you want to hear our story, please read on.
How L.A.W. was snatched from his safe home
When the Spanish authorities came for our boy, first they came with 2 Civil Guard cars and 2 civilian cars with guardia civil man and some other civilian dressed people. Why? To do a health check on our life stock, although that is what they wanted. After making it clear for several times asking they had to speak in English", ID themeselves and show us the official papers the biggest Guardia Civil shouted: “I am from the Gaurdia Civil and I do not need any papers!” Later on we got the picture that this was a total distraction of the real reason they harassed us and tress passing our private property.
An illegal removal of a child is kidnapping
Soon after that, within a minute there where in between 15 to 20 law enforcement operatives arriving and all jumped out of their cars and surrounded us like we where the biggiest criminals in the world. Many wearing full body protection and armed with pistols and batons. They were accompanied by another at least 4 cars full of civilians.
Intimidation Tactics
It was impossible for us to work out who was in charge or what they wanted. They got out of the cars shouting at us at the same time. No one identified themselves. Everyone was talking over each other, yelling only in Spanish. Even though myself, linda, and my husband louis kept calm, they kept shouting over and over and us to stop being aggressive. It felt like they were trying to upset us and provoke us in some way – it is hard to keep calm when armed men keep shouting at you. But we managed that.
I was surrounded by 10 people and they kept on going shouting, yelling, making intimydating moves with their hands and bodies towards me whilst I was standing in the middle of them. Louis had a similiar situation lik 50 meters from me. Some stood by their cars and some civilians where walking very hasty in other directions. Meanwhile I saw from my position the biggest policeman, apparently the "leader" of the whole gang, sent the so-called veterinarian away in her black car. Apparently, her game was up and she was not allowed to be present at this robbery any further. She tore away from our finca at high speed.
Say it in English
As I couldn’t understand all of these people shouting at us in Spanish at the same time I just kept repeating over and over again: "What is happening? I do not understand." ‘Speak in English or dutch please”. One of the heavaly armed and fully bodyprotected policemen tried to take my phone several times. Separate groups of officers sperated us and surrounded me and Louis.
Deceive and Distract
Soon it began to seem to us that they were doing that so they could distract us, keeping us away from the house and to finally illigaly enter our house. That was when the purpose of their visit really became clear. They entered the house and snatched Lucca from his safe bedroom. The next thing we saw, our beloved son was being bundled into a car and within 30 seconds everybody was speeding away from our property. We left behind with.................
My Heart ripped out
My feeling as they drove away with him to who knows where, was one of utter devastation and impotence. No words can descriped the feelings I experianced at that moment. Your heart is ripped out, I could physically feel it. Surrounded by armed police there was nothing I could do to protect my son. Almost as bad was the fact that both Louis and I had no idea what we had apparently done wrong that could possibly justify them taking our son away from his parents. Louis needed to call 112 for me and they took me to the local emergency room in Maella. (That story I will share on a later moment) We would not see Lucca for 42 days! For all of us the ordeal was just beginning and it still is not ended. The harrashment is still going on but not for long!
Health Check on our Livestock?
Earlier that morning, before those Civil Guard, arrived I had a bad feeling. Immediately before we had received an unusual visit earlier that week and something didn’t feel right. Just after a short while I learned why I had those feelings. One solitary Guardia Civil car and a so called vet with some other civilians tress passed and come -- on the face of it at least -- to check our animals.
Louis, Lucca and I have lived in Spain on a smallholding for seven years with goats, sheep, chickens we keep for our own (when needed) consumption and we kept a few animals which we adopted to give a for everhome like our amazing Don Quijote (Donkey), Casper (our dog) and some other lovely animalsouls.
In that time we have never had this kind of heavy-handed official visit. Very often agents of the Forest Guard – a branch of law enforcement here – drive through our land and go right past our animals. They would normally be the first people to say something if anything was wrong but they have never had any problem with the condition of our animals. Nor would they have reason to have a problem. Like our son, we take good care of our livestock and pets.
The distraction in the form of a "Vet"
Today though the visit had a different character. They Civil Guard used a special dog catching stick with a noose at the end to catch our dog, Casper, saying that he was heavely aggressive – something which is completely untrue as the many guests to our home can testify. They pulled it so tight so that he could not breath and suffered a lack of oxygen to the brain. This led to him having breathing problems, a minor stroke and ultimately brain damage. Our beloved animal friend for 6+ years, his first name was Honor, adopted from a local Spanish family, enriched our lives and many other animal and humanlifes, for many years. He lived his life in total freedom and we are devistated that this happend to him by a bunge of intruders.
Soon after we demanded to see the paperwork authorising this inspection, one of the Guardia Civil officers made a call. A much larger team was obviously waiting nearby for a pretext to descend on our home. Within 30 seconds the rest of the Guardia Civil and Social Services people were arriving and our nightmare was about to get worse. At that moment we did not know that all those people dressed in civilian clothes where social services. Until this day we still do not have any clue who does people are but know we will find out very soon!
It could happen to you
We recognise that our lifestyle is not conventional. But we believe simply wanting to live differently does not make us a threat to anyone – nor does it make us love and protect our children any less than other families. We heard that because we took Lucca out of the school system to be home-schooled that the administration considered that he was in danger and isolated from company. This is completely untrue. What is especially sad for us is that if social services had checked this properly, if they had done their jobs, they would have known this. The fight to get Lucca back has cost us our wonderful home, our freedom, our beloved animals, our social live, our work and income so in total the life we had built in Spain.
Traumatised and PTTS
We are heavely traumatised. Lucca is unable to sleep on his own and suffers nightmares after a horrendous experience at the safe house. We have heard that he was subject to sexual abuse from a boy there. We have to face the fact that our son may be scarred for life because he was taken away from his family where he was safe to a supposed safe house, which as I said, turned out to be anything but safe. All of us are still picking up the pieces our lives which have been turned upside down.
But alongside the trauma we feel an overwhelming anger. We think people should know about our case. They should know that the Spanish authorities have almost unlimited power to seize your child even if you think you would be impossible in a Western European democracy apparently subject to the rule of law.
This is just the bare outlines of our story
We would encourage anyone – foreigners with children especially – who are living in Spain to please be careful and to read the rest of our experience to know how they are at risk. Please know how vulnerable you are in the face of the limitless power of the Spanish state.
This is just an introduction to how our lives were overturned and changed for ever. In the pages of this website we explain our story in greater detail and how we managed to get Lucca back with the help of a few very close friends, especially Joanna Pachwicewicz.
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